The production of scarcity and hunger is a practice profoundly interwoven into the history of coloniality — from the foodstuffs taken from the American continent to be cooked and served to eager Europeans; to the voracious consumption of living Black and Brown human beings at the table of colonial economy; to the ravenous devouring of the Earth itself in the quest for endless economic growth. It is this hunger that underscores the rhetoric of exploitation at the root of the current climate crisis; a hunger that classifies not only forests, valleys, lakes, and seas, but also some people under the definition of “resources.” How is it possible, then, to create the conditions for life whilst struggling within a political system designed to produce the death of some for the benefit of others? How to counteract a narrative of scarcity for which the solution presented by the current system is the total consumption of the earth itself, and with it those who stand at its margins, at its shorelines?
This work was initially conceived as an immersive installation meant to encourage an interrogation of the entanglements between the ongoing climate crisis, fertility, land, and belonging in the context of two Brazilian cities: Rio de Janeiro and Boa Vista. Visitors were invited to sit or lie down and participate, together with the artist and invited guests, in a series of activation sessions where we considered two radical, decolonizing practices of care and affect that directly challenge perverse infrastructures that monitor and restrict the ability to create futures and sustain worlds that are multiple, plural, heterogenous.
Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, it has become far more difficult to experience such moments of collectivity and sharing. At the same time, many of the issues that this work attempts to consider have become even more urgent. The two GIF essays on this website were a key part of the original installation meant to be included in the Alt_Cph exhibition. Each time one of the two essay pages is loaded, a set of images and animated text starts to appear, allowing a specific articulation of that essay's narrative to slowly emerge. In case the mouse is moved over the window, these elements will disappear; that specific articulation will be forever lost, and a new set of images will start to emerge. Much like the visitors to the original installation, those accessing the website are invited to understand themelves as fundamental actors in unravelling the essay, by both giving it space to come into being, and giving context and meaning to its emergence. The accompanying longform essay to this work can be accessed
here.
ENTER RIO DE JANEIRO
ENTER BOA VISTA
Developed by Luiza Prado de O. Martins with support from transmediale.